Evaluation

My Documentary is finally finished and I am very happy with the final outcome and it matches the initial idea that was in my head.

The product: 

The documentary is meant to show how Sunderland is evolving from having no purpose, to now becoming a film capital. I chose to make this due to the fact that my client was Sunderland Culture. Sunderland Culture gave me a young demographic target audience at 16 - 25. They wanted me to display talent within the north. After researching into Sunderland Culture, I found out that they use their funding to help people less fortunate or less abled, with creating art.

With the aim of inspiring the youth to create content and feel confident about where they live, I decided to create my documentary. 

After finding out my audience and thinking of my idea, I was able to look into existing work within the industry to assist me with my knowledge of how to tell a story appropriately. With this research from past and present I was able to know how to create a rise and fall in tension and make the audience feel emotions, that were in this case, empathy.

My documentary was about and aimed to show the audience how Sunderland, at the moment is worthless and has no purpose compared to other places. My documentary makes other places outshine Sunderland to make it look pathetic. However, this was important in order to make my conclusion.  

The Documentary begins with old footage of Sunderlands Shipyards when they were being used. I used a combination of facts and change within my documentary to display how the people of Sunderland have gone from a city with purpose and worth, to nothing. This makes people from and around Sunderland why it is the state it is in and, in return, creates empathy for the city. By showing a mother's opinion from 1980, we are able to show that there was once hope within Sunderland and it is now gone.

Following on from that, I show the hope that Sunderland had. I give relief to the tension by showing the investment that was in Sunderland. E.G Nissan. In order to build tension again, I spoke about how Sunderland, despite its efforts, has not returned to its old state. This makes the audience feel a certain way and it was done on purpose. The audience were given a sense of belief for Sunderland and then have been let down. This failed attempt of salvation for Sunderland has not worked and therefore made the audiences empathy, bigger than before.

Next, I tell the audience that there are places within the north that are great. I use alnwick, Bamburgh, Durham and Newcastle for this. These places completely blow Sunderland out of the park and leave Sunderland looking unneeded and worthless.

In order to create this feeling more prominent within audiences head, I used the power of music to influence the audience's mind. I used slow paced, soft piano music in the beginning to imply sadness and solitude to Sunderland. The slow music adds dramatic effect and makes Sunderland appear Dull.

For Alnwick I used a very heavy drum and guitar song. By manipulating the STEMs of the music, I was able to create a cinematic sequence for Alnwick. This was done in order to give Alnwick a "yeah lets get up and go there" attitude. I wanted the audience to feel that Alnwick was great for the whole family and that they should go there now.

Again, within Bamburgh, I used music in order to influence the audience's mind. I used a slow paced violin song. This was used in order to imply that Bamburgh is an old, magnificent castle that can be visited for peace and quiet.

Durham has a 'opera-like' style soundtrack as I like to call it. I wanted Durham to have a soft beginning in order to display its calming and peaceful river walks. But, I wanted to also have a track that turns loud and majestic. This is what I searched for and eventually found. The music slowly builds and builds creating the tension. From there, the music drops and reveals the Cathedral. The audience feel a sense of importance and size from the music and assists with the fact of the cathedral having beautiful architecture.

Newcastle was meant to be a place for a chilled out night stroll and food. Therefore I thought jazz music would fit perfectly. The music satisfies and matches the audiences emotions of Newcastle due to the shots and color grade I chose. 

At this moment the audience see Sunderland as being outshined by all of these places. However by again using facts, evidence and an upbeat music choice I am able to hype the audience up for the change. Giving them a reason to like Sunderland again and feel hope for Sunderland is what the audience wanted from the start and they finally have it. 

By this point the audience understand what is happening and the documentary could stop there. However, learnt from my product research, Using personal identity connects the audience from just an emotion, to making them feel like they are part of this story.

I used my personal work and emotions on the matter to give young people from Sunderland someone to relate to and aim to inspire them to be proud of where they are from and inspire them to create their own life and art. 

As just referenced, the color grade choice I used was important. Color influences the mind and can change a place from looking dull and bleak to vibrant and full of life. As seen in my post production, I made the color grade to have a teal and orange tint. This will imply warmth and comfort to all places and demonstrate strength within their place within the north.

After getting the audience feedback, they wished to see more facts and logos. Therefore I added them where they were needed. Looking back now, the extra facts add more trust within the documentary and shown me that trying other people's ideas can work in my favour.

In order to keep the audience in the flow of the story and to keep the rhythm, I used J and L cuts. I have referenced L and J cuts within my post production and previously in past projects. 

The basic hard cuts in the documentary are used to show the difference of place and time within the documentary. Hard cuts are also used with my voice in order to show the change. For example when I say durham, Newcastle or talk about what is in these places, my voice makes the cut. This means the audience understand what the article is about and makes the narrative flow better. There is no masking transitions or cross dissolves transitions. Hard cuts mean the audience are concentrating on one clip at a time. Hard cuts allow to keep the pace of the video the same throughout and do not distract the audience. 

Overall my documentary was trying to engage the audience through personal identity and education. I was able to relate to the audience through my personal opinion at the end and give them somebody to relate to. On the other hand, I educated them about the past, present and future of Sunderland.

Reflection:

Overall I think that my project went to plan and I never came into problems. The only struggle I necessarily had was finding the correct music that matched and fading between tracks. I had no problems doing them, it was just time consuming. However the final outcome was worth the time spent into it.

The way that moods fluctuate throughout the video allows the video to stay engaging and keeps the audience hooked for another twist. Although moods (sad, relaxation, empathy, hope, struggle, loss ) repeat, the reasons are different which gives the audience a new subject to think and learn about.  The length of clips were also used to assist moods. The fast pace of Alnwick gives a get up and go attitude, whereas the slow clips of Bamburgh give a sense of relaxation and peace.

Identification:

Throughout this project I have been able to apply the professional and working standards I learned and solidified from past projects. Having already been used to using cameras and video equipment, the way i recorded was similar but I learned new techniques in order to create a more pleasing image. This project was a lot more time consuming compared to my last project. However, working on the workflow and time management issues down  throughout my past projects, allowed this project to be my most confident and streamline to date.

In my past projects (as you can see in my past evaluations) I have always struggled with wondering if my work is suitable and correct. Due to the work created being completely in my hands, the outcome, good or bad, is down to me. In this project I took a firm and confident grasp of work and went with what I thought was right and trusted my own judgement. This resulted in me being more relaxed and less stressed when creating my work. I believe the lack of stress and the trust within myself, allowed me to create a piece of work that is 100% what I feel is right and I do not feel like it is wrong. This project has shown me that taking my time and trusting my gut, results in a better outcome and product.

The client was easy for me to understand. When starting my journey at college, I found it hard to know what information I need to learn about a client. However, these last two years have assisted me in learning about the industry and how to find the correct and highest quality of information in order to create a product. In past projects I researched and found out about the companies investment from 10 years ago. On this project I was able to know that that information isn't what is important (but still briefly looked into). On the past projects I spent hours looking way too deep into useless information. All I need to know is their ethos, purpose, target audience, past work and use that information in order to come up with an decision on what idea works best.

Pre-Production was simple as I had confidence within myself and  my ideas. Presenting pitches is easier for me now and due to the lack of stress and pressure I put on myself, I was able to give a confident, firm and professional pitch.

Production ran into issues, such as recording as least people as possible and being discreet. I quickly changed or waited for a better time to shoot and ended up getting the shots that I wanted. It is better to get what I want and it take slightly longer, than rush and struggle in post production. 

Post production was time consuming, not difficult, but highly time consuming. Most of the videos emotion and story was built due to the craftsmanship and time spent in post production. The tension within the story and the emotions I wished to evoke came from the use of music and color within my editing. Already being a strong editor before college gave me the upper hand. However, throughout my time here I have learnt how to edit more seamlessly and use all the skills at my disposal in order to create the most effective, yet unnoticeable edits.J and L cuts added a lot to the video and if I hadn't used them, a lot of the video would have been choppy and unattractive to the ear.

Overall this project went very well and I am proud and confident with the outcome. In the future I wish to try and continue with my gut and use my skills to my advantage at all times.